


Number Every One

by branwyn



Series: Person of Interest stories by branwyn [9]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Interrogation, Kidnapping, M/M, Nathan & Harold backstory, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Domestic Violence, Rescue, Voicemail, irrelevant numbers, recurring numbers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:46:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24579262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/branwyn/pseuds/branwyn
Summary: “John?” Nathan says softly. “Is that you?”
Relationships: Harold Finch/Nathan Ingram, Jessica Arndt/John Reese, Nathan Ingram/John Reese
Series: Person of Interest stories by branwyn [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1641835
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36
Collections: Exchange of Interest 2020





	Number Every One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [talkingtothesky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/gifts).



_Hi, it’s me._

_I was really hoping you’d answer. I didn’t want to just...leave a mysterious message like this._

_I just wanted to tell you not to worry._

_I’m going away for awhile? I’m staying in the city while I figure things out. Not sure where I’m going after that. Probably back west._

_I have to get a new phone, so this number won’t work much longer. I’ll try to call when I’m sure it’s safe._

_Whatever you’re doing out there—take care of yourself._

*

_2010_

“Hello?” Nathan’s head is pounding. He squints into the dim light of his bedroom. “Olivia?”

Even when they were still married, Olivia wasn’t really the type to play with handcuffs and chicken feathers in the bedroom, but hope springs eternal. He twists in place, craning his neck.

“I should have installed more mirrors,” says Nathan. “At least then I’d know if someone was standing by with a key.”

When there’s no reply, Nathan starts to panic in earnest. 

He woke up a minute ago tied (or maybe cuffed) to an armchair, with no idea how he got here. Worse, he has no idea how he’s going to get free. Will’s overseas, Olivia doesn’t call, much less come over. It’s not like _Harold_ is going to come check on him. 

Nathan might really be here for awhile.

“Billionaire Dies Handcuffed in Bedroom, Didn’t Even Get Laid First.” Nathan sighs. “I’m embarrassed, I really am.”

The silence grates his nerves. Every instinct Nathan’s got is telling him that he’s not alone in the room. 

“Look,” he says, “whatever it is you want, I’m sure I can help. Unless you just want me tied to this chair indefinitely, and even then, we might be able to work something out. I’m surprisingly adaptable for a guy who grew up in Texas.”

The noise Nathan hears a moment later could be as ordinary as a draft passing through an air vent, except it’s followed by a small, dry chuckle.

*

_2009_

Octavia Onwubuya beamed up at Nathan from the twenty-year old photo on her expired driver’s license. Her wizened little smile almost seemed encouraging. Like she was telling him what a nice young man he was, and she just knew he was going to do the right thing.

The contingency program was less than a week old.

Nathan took a deep breath, and told his assistant to hold his calls. 

Mrs. Onwubuya was widowed, 89 years old, with no living family in the U.S. The only person she saw on a regular basis was a hired caretaker who came to her apartment every weekday morning and some Saturdays, to help her bathe, prepare her meals, and administer her medications. The caretaker’s name was Susan Greaves, 38, divorced, two kids. She brought her personal laptop to work every day to complete the documentation that went along with her job. 

Nathan decided to try commandeering the webcam and microphone of Susan’s laptop. It was the kind of thing that would take Harold about five minutes. Nathan took the whole damn morning, but by noon, he finally had a view of Mrs. Onwubuya’s living room. 

Nathan watched the women eating lunch in front of the TV. Their voices were too low for the mic to pick up, but it looked like they were both laughing. Nathan watched as Mrs. Onwubuya received her lunchtime insulin injection, then lay down to nap, while Susan read to her from the well-worn Bible on the nightstand. 

Nathan expected to be bored, but it was oddly soothing.

Exactly one hour after she tucked Mrs. Onwubuya into her bed, Susan put the Bible down, picked up her phone, and called 911. Paramedics turned up and took Mrs. Onwubuya away while Nathan sat there, gawping at his monitor.

He worked late into the night piecing the story together. 

It turned out that Nathan had been watching from the comfort of his corner office while Mrs. Onwubuya’s caretaker murdered her with an insulin overdose. 

He drank that night, and sent all Harold’s calls to voicemail for the rest of the week.

*

_2010_

The sound of faint, deliberate laughter makes Nathan’s heart pound in his ears.

“So you are there,” he says. “What a relief. Wouldn’t want to be here all night. My cleaning service has a strict policy regarding clients who... _surprise_ their staff.”

He has the distinct impression that he’s only hearing the sound of a footstep on the carpet because he’s being allowed to.

“You’re perfectly decent,” says a man’s voice. He’s nearby, a few feet away at most. “Feeling exposed?”

“Now that you mention it, something about being cuffed to a chair does make me feel a little underdressed for the occasion.” Nathan pauses. “Or is it over-dressed?”

Behind him, the chair’s backrest creaks as another person leans their weight on it. He hears a faint metallic snick, then the ties around his wrists slacken, left first, then right. 

He shakes life back into his arms, rubs the pins and needles out of his hands, and bends to untie his feet. 

“Don’t.” Nathan freezes. “Sit up. I’d like to see your face.”

The loft is blanketed in the kind of silence that only people in Nathan’s tax bracket can afford in Manhattan. He can’t hear anything outside the room that might tell him whether it’s morning, noon, or the middle of the night. The blackout curtains are good at their job, and only the slow red blink of a charger on the bedside table relieves the gloom.

“So we’re just going to sit here in the dark?” Nathan starts massaging the feeling back into his wrists. “Like Psyche and Cupid. Wait—we didn’t get married, did we?”

“This look like a honeymoon to you, Nathan?”

Something in his new friend’s voice keeps Nathan from replying right away. Just a faint hint of tension. He files it away, tries not to let himself feel intimidated. It’s easier than he expects. But then, his terror threshold has gotten a lot higher recently.

“My head is killing me,” Nathan tells the darkness. “And my mouth is dry. Apart from that, I’m not really sure what this feels like.” He considers what he remembers, or rather doesn’t remember, about the last twelve hours. “Are you the one who slipped me the roofie?”

“Wasn’t me,” says the voice. 

Nathan blinks. “Well, there’s a twist. If I ask who did, will you tell me?”

“Of course,” says the voice, and foreboding prickles down the back of Nathan’s neck. “The name Peter Arndt ring a bell?”

*

_John._

_I need some advice._

_Just, tell me what to do. How does someone—go into hiding? God, I feel stupid just saying it. How does it work, is it just_

_No, no, you know what. I’m fine. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called. I can figure this out._

_Sorry, again, I—yeah. Sorry._

*

_2010_

Nathan swallows hard, suddenly grateful for the cover of darkness.

“You know him.” Another whisper of movement, and then a fingertip traces along the curve of his bare neck. “Is Arndt a friend of yours?

Nathan feels the touch like the sting of an electric prod. He yelps and jerks away so hard the chair rocks a little. The guy never said Nathan had to stay quiet, but he has a feeling that if he makes a real mistake, the old “you didn’t tell me not to” excuse is going to go down about as well as it did with his Ma when he was twelve.

“Am I _friends_ with the guy who drugged me? No.”

There’s a small huff that might be laughter. “I didn’t realize you were ticklish.” Nathan hears humor in the dry whisper. “I’ll remember that for later.”

“Now, that could be a threat or a promise.”

“I’m glad we understand each other.” He’s behind him again, and Nathan has a little warning this time before he feels the fingernail, drawing a line over his shoulder, down to his collar bone. 

Nathan tries to breathe deeply, evenly, and does not let himself shudder. 

“I’d really, really like it, Nathan, if you could just tell me, honestly, what your relationship is with Peter Arndt.”

“And you’ll let me go if I tell you, is that it?” Nathan drawls. “I never met the man.”

“But you know him.”

Nathan takes his time deciding how to answer that question. “Actually,” he says, “I knew his wife.”

*

_2008_

“Oh.” Harold leaned back in his chair to peer at the screen. “I’ve seen this woman before.”

It had been awhile since either of them broached the topic of the irrelevant list. Harold was careful to sort through those datasets when Nathan wasn’t around, and Nathan didn’t ask about them anymore.

A woman’s face was staring up at Harold from his monitor, the words NON-RELEVANT stamped across the bottom of her photograph.

“Her name has appeared on the irrelevant list once already. See, here.” Harold called up a record on the second monitor. “The first time was in 2007.”

Nathan walked over to Harold’s desk, peering down over his shoulder. “How could anyone’s name appear on the list more than once? Some kind of glitch?”

Harold looked affronted. “The Machine doesn’t glitch.”

“It tried to kill you, Harold.”

“No, that—that was an evolutionary predecessor of the current system.” Harold tilted his head slightly, the way he did when he was going to say something he knew Nathan wouldn’t like. “The recurring numbers aren’t errors. They fit into a larger pattern I’ve observed recently.”

Nathan frowned. “What kind of pattern?”

“I haven’t really looked into it.” Harold caught Nathan’s look, and sighed. “So far, all the recurring numbers have been women. I don’t know what, if anything else, they have in common.”

The silence was tense. On the screen, the number—Jessica Arndt—looked out at them, frank and fearless, just a hint of vulnerability in the warm dark eyes.

Nathan found himself reaching for the screen, like he could touch her face.

“You’ll smudge the glass, Nathan,” Harold tutted, batting his hand away.

*

_2010_

“Jessica and I met at Starbucks. She was new to the city, and I hadn’t been out much since I got divorced. It was a nice way to pass fifteen or twenty minutes a couple of times a week.”

It’s a true story. Nathan is just omitting the part where an all-knowing, all-seeing computer system had shown him records of Jessica’s ATM withdrawals so he would know which Starbucks he could find her at, and when.

“You...went to a Starbucks. To get yourself a coffee.” The voice is unreasonably amused by this. “Want to try again?”

“I get my own coffee!” Nathan says, offended. “Why is that so hard to believe?”

“I find it hard to believe that a guy as rich as you wipes his own ass.”

“I guess that’s fair. You know, I heard that Prince Charles’ valet folds his bath towels so they hug his ass when he sits down on them.”

“Did you know Jessica was going to be there?”

Nathan’s heart thumps hard in his chest. 

Until right now, he’s just been guessing about his captor’s motivation. Does he want to find out where Nathan gets his information, or is he after Arndt? But the way he just said Jessica’s name...no, this is something else. Something personal.

“I saw her on the sidewalk outside one morning.” Nathan says it like it’s an admission he doesn’t want to make. “She got in line, and I thought...why not have some coffee. Strike up a conversation. That’s all there was to it, I wasn’t stalking her.”

“So you had coffee. Did you have dinner?” The lightness in the voice is more threatening than a sneer. “How about breakfast?”

At first, he thinks he’s hearing jealousy, as little sense as that makes. But he revises that estimation. The anger is cold, not hot, as if he considers Nathan’s affair with Jessica a given, but is more focused on something else.

Nathan should lean into the affair story. It’s a safer explanation for how he and Jessica met than the truth. The guy might not be after the Machine, but the more layers of obfuscation Nathan can put between them, the safer Harold will be.

The only problem is, Nathan doesn’t want to do it. Something in him rebels at the idea of cheapening the truth that way. Harold’s right: he’s incurable.

“Jessica and I were friends, we weren’t sleeping together,” Nathan says, wearily. “And no, before my grammar implicates me, she’s not dead. I just don’t expect to see her again.”

“And do you give all your friends 1.5 million dollars after knowing them for two weeks?”

Nathan’s head jerks up, startled. If he knows about the money, he’s either talked to Jessica, or he’s been through Nathan’s private financial records, which shouldn’t be possible. _Harold_ does his network security.

“I do if they need it,” he says slowly. 

“And what would Jessica need with that kind of money?”

It’s there again, in the way he says her name. Nathan can almost see the confident sneer that accompanies it, that says, _I know her_. 

He’s been doing some improbable math in the back of his head, and it isn’t fear of being wrong that makes him hesitate. 

“John?” he says softly. “Is that you?”

*

_2008_

“So what happens with the recurring numbers?” Nathan gestured vaguely. “The—murderers, they just change their minds, or what?”

“I don’t know. The Machine identifies people who will be involved in an event that results in loss of life within 24-72 hours. If, for whatever reason, they’re still alive at the end of three days, the threat is deemed to have passed. Beyond that, and the fact that recurring numbers seem to be unique to the irrelevant list, there’s nothing more I can tell you.”

Harold spoke in a clipped, efficient manner that said he regretted raising the topic. Probably, he thought Nathan was going to restart the old argument. Nathan knew better by then, though.

“Why’d it take them two weeks to track down Kurtzweil, if the window is 72 hours?”

Harold huffed, amused. “That was years ago, Nathan.” He seemed distracted, lost in the wonder of the thing. “The Machine knows us better, now.”

“It knows us, huh?” 

Nathan restrained the urge to reach for the monitor again. It wasn’t a person, to need his help. Jessica Arndt was, but she might as well be on the dark side of the moon, for all Nathan could reach her.

“It’s just funny to think that this thing knows what I’m going to do next, when most of the time even I don’t,” he said.

Harold looked up at him, eyes sharp for a moment. 

“Human beings run on loops, just like computer systems.” He shrugged a little. “Routines are secure, that’s why we cling to them. It takes radical intervention to deter us. Trauma, catastrophe.”

 _Love,_ thought Nathan.

*

_2010_

Silence rolls over the room like a clap of thunder. Nathan’s breath is fast and quiet. He’d guessed right. He’s never been this afraid in his whole life.

After Jessica mentioned John to him, Nathan had asked the Machine for a profile. He’d been thinking of recruiting the man into some kind of security consultant position, maybe setting him up to cross paths with Jess. Just a nudge in the direction of a happy ending.

Once he actually saw the profile, he changed his mind. 

John Reese kills people. He interrogates them, unearths their secrets for the government, and eliminates them. He might be here for personal reasons, but that doesn’t mean he won’t question Nathan to professional standards. The irrelevant list, the Machine, Harold, there’s no point deluding himself that he’ll be able to protect them from someone like John.

 _I need him to trust me,_ Nathan thinks, breathing to stave off the panic. _I need to tell him about Jessica._

“Jess talked about you,” Nathan says. “I asked her if she had a friend she could stay with. It worried me, her being so alone in the city. She said she’d lost touch with almost all of her old friends, but there was this guy, John. She still had a phone number for him.” Nathan feels a bead of sweat gathering at his hairline. “Did she ever call?”

“Yes, actually.” John’s voice is as dry as leaves scratching over pavement in fall. “She left a couple of messages. Didn’t answer when I called back, so I tried to find her. Instead, I found Arndt, hiring people to kidnap and question—you.”

“Why?” Nathan says, honestly confused. 

“He found out you were behind the bailout that wiped out his debt.”

“And he’s mad about that?”

“No.” The teasing, the humor, the false lightness have all been stripped out his voice. “Arndt thinks that you paid Jessica a lot of money to have sex with you. She gets her husband off the hook with some very bad people. You get...her.”

Nathan’s disgust is heartfelt, and impossible to keep off his face. “That,” he says emphatically, “did _not_ happen.”

“Where _are_ you keeping Jessica these days, Nathan?” says John.

“I’m not. I don’t know where she is.” 

A tall, lean form emerges from the darkness. The shadows still fall over his face, but from here Nathan can see the breadth of his shoulders, the shape of his hands. 

“Well, that’s a lie,” John says.

*

_2009_

At MIT, Harold was always tense when they were in public. Brittle, like if you touched him, he’d snap. But after two years, Nathan could sit next to him on the library steps while the wind made the autumn leaves dance. They could lean into each other a little, for warmth, while they waited for class to start, and it didn’t make things weird. 

“I have to tell you something,” said Harold out of the blue. “I wasn’t going to tell anyone, ever. But if we’re going to be partners, you deserve the truth.”

Nathan sat there, listening, watching the leaves, while Harold told him a strange, sad story about growing up in a little farmhouse in Iowa, building his first systems as a child, watching his father’s health decline. It was more or less the kind of background Nathan expected Harold to come from, stable but solitary, and he did his best to look sympathetic while he waited for his friend to get to the point.

Then Harold told him the rest. About the DOD hack, and the men who came looking for him afterwards.

Nathan didn’t know what to say. A voice that sounded like his dad’s said there was a reason Harold was telling him this now, that he should take the hint and forget this partnership idea before he got in over his head. 

But sitting next to Harold, seeing his expression close up like he was bracing for rejection, Nathan knew he wasn’t going anywhere. Harold was risking everything, telling him this. The trust he was offering stirred a reciprocal protectiveness in Nathan so intense it almost hurt. Someone as special, as good as Harold shouldn’t be alone in the world. Being the person who got to stand with Harold as he unleashed his genius—that was worth taking a big risk.

“We just need to make a hell of a lot of money,” he said. “Millionaires don’t go to prison, Harold.”

Relief made Harold giddy. He started laughing, and then Nathan did, and the color came back into Harold’s face. After a few minutes they got up, hands and noses stinging from the cold, and went into class together. 

A month later, Harold graduated early, at the age of 20. Nathan elected to leave MIT at the same time. The company, he decided, was more important than finishing his degree.

Another thirty years went by, and now, here Nathan was: sitting in vast dark room full of humming servers and blinking lights, creating a backdoor into Harold’s secret government system. If Harold ever found out, he’d be furious. He’d probably even feel betrayed.

But no one would hurt him, and no one would put him in prison. Nathan would protect Harold from the fallout of the contingency program, whatever it took.

He just wished Harold could understand why he was doing it. Decades of playing the Wall Street game, exploiting opportunities, making one compromise after another to secure IFT’s bottom line, had worn him down until he felt like a shadow of the bright young MIT drop-out he’d once been. Harold got to do the work he was born to do, but somewhere along the line, Nathan had stopped recognizing himself. 

For one bright moment, when they decided to build the Machine, Nathan thought it was a chance for...something. But that went away when they turned their back on the irrelevant list.

Someone who would take risks to save the people who needed him—that’s who Nathan wanted to be. And that’s the kind of person Octavia Onwubuya was going to need this week.

The Machine gave up the irrelevant list like it was just waiting for someone to ask. Nathan sighed, feeling the relief of the burden he’d laid down, and the weight of the one he’d just taken up. 

“Thank you,” he whispered to the dark screen. It felt sort of like someone understood him, at least.

*

_2010_

John stands on the far side of the room, between a bookshelf and a useless decorative screen, watching Nathan. His face is finally visible, features thin and stretched, the dim lamplight picking out all the sharp angles and harsh lines. 

“I’m not lying,” Nathan says. “Jessica left the city, she didn’t tell me where she was going. I told her not to.”

John’s eyes narrow, and suddenly it hits Nathan: John has no idea. 

He doesn’t know that Jessica was fleeing her husband when she came to New York, or that she’s still hiding from him. He doesn’t know that Arndt hurt her, that Jessica was afraid for her life.

He doesn’t know, and if Nathan wants to clear up a potentially fatal misunderstanding, he’s going to have to tell him. Nathan’s been telling wealthy and powerful men things they don’t want to hear in boardroom meetings for thirty years, but this—he has no idea how to do this.

“I made a mistake with Arndt,” Nathan says, to start. “I thought that if he was under less financial pressure, he’d cool off a little. Instead, it just gave him the time and resources to start hunting Jessica down.” He gentles his voice, guessing how he would feel in John’s shoes. “This wasn’t the first time she left him. It’s just the first time she didn’t go back.”

He watches as John looks aside, sifting his memories, the hint taking root in his imagination. 

“Money was a factor, when she decided to go back to him before. The debt relief, that was for Jess, not Arndt. She felt guilty about abandoning him when he was at his lowest. For richer or poorer, and all that.” John’s mouth twitches. “Once the money was a non-issue, it was easier for her to take her own needs into consideration.”

“She tell you all that?” John sounds hoarse, almost breathless. 

“Yeah, she did,” says Nathan gently. “John, would you...like to sit down? And maybe we can talk, like a couple of people who have a mutual friend?”

Nathan gestures John toward the armchair facing him. 

It’s a tense, silent few seconds before John steps out of the shadows.

Nathan smiles, big and broad. “You know, you’re more handsome in real life than in your dress greens portrait.” 

John sits heavily in his chair. Nathan has been feeling the weight of his gaze all this time, but now they’re face to face John won’t even look at him. 

“Where is she?” John asks quietly.

“I really don’t know. But I gave her a phone. If she ever needs anything, she only has to call.”

“Has—”

“I haven’t heard from her since I dropped her off at the port authority.”

“What day did she leave, the exact date.”

There’s more urgency than threat in John’s voice, and it has the contrary effect of making Nathan want to answer him more. “I would have to look through my notes. It was after Christmas, I want to say the 28th or 29th.”

John collapses in on himself, and starts to sob like a man broken, not by pain, but by the enormity of his relief.

*

_2009_

When Jessica Arndt’s number appeared on the irrelevant list for the third time in as many years, Nathan almost wept for relief. All of the others from back then were dead, lost chances gone forever, but _she_ was alive. It wasn’t too late yet. Nathan could still save her.

The problem of the recurring numbers had been rattling around in the back of Nathan’s head. He was no social worker or psychologist, but he’d been reading some articles. Enough to appreciate that the situation was probably too complex for any intervention on his part to be useful. So he did the smart thing, and consulted an expert.

“Tell me what I need to know to help Jessica Arndt.” 

The screen of his laptop flickered to brightness, like an eye startled open. Nathan smiled into the camera, a greeting for the Machine.

Outside, rain beat gently against large frosted windows. The air tasted like dust and book mold. As abandoned libraries went, this one would almost be cozy, if it weren’t so lonely. But that was hardly the library’s fault. Nathan was just used to working with a partner.

According to the Machine, Jessica Arndt owned a house with her husband Peter in New Rochelle: a nice little suburb with no crowds to disappear into, where Nathan’s famous face would be recognized in minutes. But her bank records said she’d bought a coffee at a particular Starbucks in Manhattan every day for the last two weeks.

“She already left him, and her number still came up,” Nathan muttered, flicking through document files. “I don’t see how he’s—wait, is he tracking her, can you tell?” 

The images onscreen don’t change. “I’ll take that as a no. If he doesn’t know where she is, then why—” He sighed, weary. “Of course. She’s going to go back to him.”

A little after nine o’clock the next morning, Nathan was standing in line waiting for his macchiato at the Starbucks across the street from the Ed Sullivan theater. Two places behind him stood a tall, slender woman with a blonde ponytail and a dark pair of sunglasses. 

He didn’t have to peacock very hard in order to get and keep Jessica’s attention. All he had to do was feign clumsiness and make Jessica spill her scalding hot coffee all over his arm. His completely unfeigned squawk of pain did the rest.

“Quick, take this off.” Jessica took his laptop bag with one hand and started helping him out of his jacket with the other. She yanked a handful of napkins out of a nearby dispenser and drenched them with the contents of half a water bottle. Her hands were trembling. Nathan felt like a heel. 

“I’m really sorry about that,” she said, pressing the wet napkins to his bright pink skin. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”

“It was my fault, believe me.” Nathan blinked at her. “Are you a doctor, or…”

“A nurse, yeah.” She smiled, a tiny flickering thing that was gone in an instant. “Here, hold the napkins, I’m going to ask if they have a first aid kit.”

Nathan took the opportunity to claim a table. Jessica returned a moment later, holding a damp dishtowel, which she wrapped around the sunburned-looking part of his arm. “Just keep it there for a few minutes, hopefully it won’t blister,” she said.

“Sit with me? Just in case.”

Jessica blinked, startled, and Nathan gave her his most disarming grin. The one that said, _I’m not a creep, I just like people._

“Sure,” she said, with a wry look. “But we’re going to need more coffee first. I’ll get yours, what’s your order?”

“Double shot macchiato, and thank you. My name is Nathan, by the way.”

“Jessica.” She shook his hand. Her warm brown eyes crinkled a little. 

Nathan let her go, but not before his eyes fell on the spreading yellow-green watercolor stain of an old, fading bruise, peeking just past the edge of her sleeve.

*

_2010_

Nathan makes the executive decision to untie his ankles without asking John’s permission first. The man has other things on his mind at the moment. 

Carefully, Nathan picks his chair up and moves it a little closer. He sits there for a moment, listening to the catastrophic upheaval that is John’s every breath. Only a last dim flicker of caution keeps Nathan from reaching out to touch him. 

“Jessica’s okay,” he says quietly. “She’s okay, I promise.”

John looks up at him, face wet, like a swimmer surfacing for air. He struggles with words for a moment, opening his mouth and saying nothing.

“I ran into her at an airport right after she got engaged.” John is hoarse, his blue eyes wide and stunned. “She offered to wait for me. I should have known something was wrong.”

A few minutes ago John was a terrifying, faceless figure lurking in the dark. Now, Nathan just wishes he knew what he could say to comfort him. 

“It wasn’t your fault, John,” says Nathan. “Mine and Jessica’s paths just happened to cross at the right place, the right time. You couldn’t have known. But I give you my word of honor, she’s safe now.”

Nathan watches the up-and-down movement of John’s shoulders. As his breathing slows, reality seems to crowd its way back into the dark room, and the warm space between them. 

“I need to go,” John mutters. Nathan sees his muscles tensing, like he’s about to get up, vanish, one more lost soul in the big city. “I’m...sorry, for all this.”

Nathan’s chest is tight. He feels anxious, like another number is about to slip through his fingers. John seems so young, and sad, and alone. Like Jessica. Like Harold, thirty years ago. And Nathan is old, and filled with a helpless tenderness. He just wants the people around him to be okay. It’s an imperative that makes the secrets he’s been guarding so fiercely seem distant and unimportant by comparison. 

“Why not stay here awhile?” Nathan says carefully.

“What?” John’s expression shifts from confusion to anger. “Why would you say that?”

“Because I want to,” says Nathan. If there’s one thing he’s gotten good at over the years, it’s persuading people to let him give them things. “Because I don’t think the job you have right now is a good fit for you. And because I think you deserve a lot better than the kind of future that’s waiting for you in your line of work.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“But I’d like to. I’d like to help you, John.” Nathan takes a deep breath and pulls out the heavy guns. “Hang on just a minute. I just need to get something from my office.”

*

“Go ahead,” says Nathan, holding the phone out.

John reaches for it with a trembling hand and a questioning look. “Just dial the number,” Nathan tells him. “It’s okay, I promise.”

He watches John hold the phone up to his ear. _“Hello?”_ says a woman’s voice, tinny and far away. _“Nathan?”_

John’s head jerks up. He stares at Nathan, phone to his ear, throat bobbing. “Jess,” he says. “It’s me, it’s John.”

Nathan smiles a little, as John turns away instinctively, tucking the phone into his shoulder.

“Yeah, Nathan’s here with me. He’s fine. I’m okay too. What about you, are you…” 

Abruptly, John sinks down into his hair, hiding his trembling mouth behind his hand. “Good,” he rasps. “I’m glad. I got your messages, Jess…”

“I’ll be in the office,” Nathan whispers. 

He pulls the door shut behind him as he goes, takes two steps down the hall, and stops, exhaustion crashing over him. He sags against the wall, surrendering to the tremors he’s been holding at bay, then slides to the floor, sitting cross-legged, head in his hands. His wrists are going to bruise. He should go and get some ice.

In the other room, he can hear the low, happy murmur of John’s voice, of John and Jessica reuniting. Nathan pats his hip pocket for his phone. His real phone, not the burner John is using. He speaks without dialing a number. 

“You had to know John was coming after me,” he says. “But my number didn’t come up. What’s with that?”

The Machine doesn’t answer, but he didn’t really expect it to. Nathan smiles indulgently at the dark screen, feeling like a man who began in a nightmare and ended in a dream. On the other side of the wall, John is probably feeling the same giddiness. If Nathan manages to keep him here, they should compare notes. It would be good to have a partner again. Like in the early days with Harold, when they were still imagining IFT into being. 

God, he misses Harold. Tomorrow, Nathan should go see him. Maybe this time, he’ll convince him that there’s still time to change the world like they were meant to. Together.


End file.
